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Courage in the face of Death
Final word from Travis
2
6
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Page 1
After working 96 hours straight, you begin to hope for the
worst, just to stop the madness if only for a minute. Your eyes
cross, your legs tremble and the sky blends seamlessly from
night to day.
While fishing aboard a crab boat, featured on Television, in
2004 we were living this scenario. We had been up for four
days straight, preparing for the summer time fishery of Golden
King Crab. The season was hours away from beginning. All
the boats had left the safety of Dutch Harbor several days
prior to make it to the fishing grounds. The boats now sit,
poised, ready for the figurative gunshot radio transmission to
begin what would become a 20 day melee of crab fishing.
We had been awake, preparing everything. We were in the
final stages, only two hours from the start. I was on top of a
45 foot stack of 7 foot by 7 foot steel crab pots, swaying back
and forth, the wind blowing 35 miles an hour. We were all in
a haze, we hadn’t slept in days. I could hardly keep my
balance as I climbed up and down the giant stack, picking up
25 pound bait setups with my teeth and climbing back to the
top of the crab pot stack to pre bait the pots.
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I just got done hanging over the side of the boat, my leg
crabber in all of us took over. It’s said that in crab fishing you
wrapped around a metal bar to keep myself from plummeting
will see the worst of the worst, the baddest of the bad and the
into the Bering Sea while I wiggled my
darkest of the dark. It will shape your
arms into the middle of a pot to hook up
instinct of reaction in the worst scenarios
His boot cut in two and
the bait sacks. That’s when I heard it, a
or it will break you. We pulled it together
blood squirting into the air
horrific scream coming from the back of
and began medical work.
the wheel house.
A scream as if
In the next ten minutes we had stopped
someone was being torn in half!
the bleeding with towels, super glue and electrical tape. It
I quickly climbed around the side of the pots and looked down
was quick and dirty, but effective. We fed him morphine and
at the other crew members. What I saw was one deckhand
laid him down in his bunk. The scene had calmed down and it
with an axe planted firmly in his foot. His boot cut in two and
was time to collect what just happened.
blood squirting into the air.
The deckhand has been chopping bait with an axe that he
made from welding a sharpened axe head to a long piece of
steel bar. While thrusting down the axe slipped loose from
the fish guts and oils on his hands and landed right in between
his big toe and the rest of his foot.
Mere hours to go before the season began and we have one
man with a foot split in half. We only had 10 days to make
two million dollars. Emotions run wild as greed overcome
logic and personal injury is set aside for money.
I got to him right as everyone was rushing to his aid. We
carried him into the galley where we took off his boot. At that
point blood had already covered the entire floor and was
dripping down our floor drains. Panic was present but the
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Page 3
The crew members and I all sat around the galley table; quiet,
still in shock, still delusional from no sleep and now with a
new problem to deal with before the season started. We
were at least two days away from any land. A helicopter could
only be called in a life threatening situation. What were we
going to do, that was the topic of discussion. Do we head back
and lose the season and the money? Do we call a helicopter?
Do we stay and fish? All this talk was taking place while we
wiped the blood off the walls.
Do we head back and lose the
season and the money?
After a long discussion we all agreed to fish. We would go a
man short, drop the pots in the water and if things got worse
we could head back to town while our gear soaked in the
water.
We all went back to our stations, finishing the job we had
started. Right as we finished the word spread over the VHF
radio. The season was officially open. As quickly as the words
were spoken, the pots were flying off the stack. The pots
came flying overhead one by one every 30 seconds. We
managed to get all 280 pots off the boat. This was the start to
the Golden King Crab season of 04. Welcome to crab fishing.
After a few hours of rest, we all got up and back into work
mode. The deckhand who split his foot in two was insisting
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Page 4
that he work on deck. He demanded that he be on deck
where he belonged. He had a total disregard for his health as
greed and work ethic took over. In the crabbing world, if a man
doesn’t pull his weight, he’s useless and is seen as so. In his case,
double foot, had a
good reason not to
be working. We
told him no, he just
can’t come out on
deck.
Infection
could set in and he
could die, just like
that.
Later that day I was
walking into the
galley from the
deck and I saw him
trying to put on his
rain gear. I told
him that it was a
bad idea, but his
continued. As he
tried to put his
boot on, but put pressure back on his foot, which was still held
together with electrical tape and glue. His foot split under pressure
and blood began to pour out once again. I ran to his aid and called
the other guys in from the deck. The operation had to be shut
down for several minutes. When you’re making a thousand dollars
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every 45 seconds, people can tend to get angry when they have to
stop.
We got his foot to stop bleeding again and told him to stay put in his
bunk. Antibiotics and pain killers were his food for the next two
days. On the third day,
he did it again. I caught
him getting his rain gear
on. His persistence was
noble, but stupid. He
demanded that he come
make bait and not be
dead weight. His foot
looked like it was
healing nicely, so he
came back on deck.
A man with a foot split
in half by a dirty axe only
4 days prior was back to
doing one of the world’s
most challenging jobs.
He sat on a bucket for
24 hours straight, filling
bait sacks and being
useful. The season ended and he flew home. On the Bering Sea
there is no calling in sick, there is no room for slack and the moment
you make a mistake you either die or you get hurt.
He came to work and that’s what he was going to do, with or
without a foot.
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Page 5
Final word from Travis
Congratulations! If you've made
it this far then I hope you enjoyed
this bonus chapter of Deadliest
Waters! When Deadliest Waters
was published, tons of good
content didn't make it into the
book. I'm very happy to be able
to share this story and a lot more
content with you, online!
Need excitement in your life?
Your heart should race and your blood
should pump every day you're alive.
Living your life with the philosophy of
learning will inspire new creativity and
new passion, every day. Sometimes we
get stuck doing things we don't always
want to do.
and creativity alive inside you is the most important part of your inner self.
Inspiration is all around us, and sometimes we have to look to other people to
provide it. It is always a hard fight, but nothing and I really mean NOTHING, beat's
that first time you truly feel free in the world. Your life will change forever.
Thank you so much!
I have received so much love and feedback from everyone that I could not possibly
give back enough! I can't thank you enough for your continued support and
encouragement . The Travis Arket lifestyle and travel blog, the crab fishing, the
photography, the writing, the adventures - it's all because of you!
I've been in the somber slump and I know it can take some serious ass kicking to
get back to truly finding inspiration and getting something done. I find it every day
in everyone who sends me a message or leaves me a comment. Everyone who I've
helped find inspiration through my meanderings makes me push harder dream
bigger. Please come join the conversation at http://www.travisarket.com!
I truly can't thank you enough and I hope to see you on the other side!
Lastly, if you haven't already, you can follow me on Twitter (@TravisArket), and
join in on the conversations going on right now on my Facebook Page.
Whether it's working at a job you don't
enjoy or being a single parent just
trying to provide for your family.
Finding a way to keep your curiosity
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Page 6